I have no way of knowing whether the Republican party will go the way of the Whigs, the Bull Moose and the dodo bird. But perhaps it should. After all, when they held control of the House, the Senate and the Oval Office, for the first six years of President Bush’s administration, they were inept, lazy and corrupt. In other words, they behaved just like Democrats.

To give Bush his due, he prevented a recurrence of 9/11, a notable feat when you realize how desperately the Islamics wanted it to happen again and again. However, he did nothing to prevent the financial crisis from taking place. What’s more, when it did occur, he, like McCain, never laid the blame for it at the feet of people like Obama, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. I never could figure that out. Were they afraid they wouldn’t be invited to the really cool Christmas parties?

God knows I kept trying to give sound advice to McCain ever since he got the nomination, but I guess he was too busy studying the campaign strategies of George McGovern, Michael Dukakis and Bob Dole, to notice.

If there is one thing that the next Republican presidential candidate should take away from this latest debacle it’s that, for all the pandering that Bush and McCain did with their open border policies, McCain, aka Mr. Amnesty, only received a smidgen of the Latino vote. So, while in some parallel universe, a Republican might be cutting into the Jewish, black and Hispanic blocs, here in America, for all the feel-good chatter about the big Republican tent, going after those votes is time and money misspent. Frankly, when you look at the demographics, the forecast for conservatives in America is none too bright. Democrats, after all, breed at a far faster rate and young people just keep getting dumber.

I hate to be a gloomy Gus, but this recent election really has me down. The inspiration for other presidents was often supplied by the likes of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln; we now have a guy who draws his moral and intellectual concepts from the likes of Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Pfleger, Alinsky and Khalidi.

So far as I’m concerned, we are already, thanks to the outsourcing of jobs and the insourcing of illegal, illiterate aliens, well on our way to becoming a third world nation. Now, with the election of Barack Obama, it seems to me we’ve made it official.

Here in California, we have an allegedly Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, after the voters for the second time voted against same-sex marriages, announced he wanted the courts to once again overturn the will of the people. To account for this, one either has to assume that his wife, Maria Shriver, has hypnotized him, that the use of steroids shrinks the brain as well as the gonads, or that Arnold spent far too many of his impressionable years in the showers at Gold’s Gym.

Liberal majorities in Congress were bad enough, but with a radical leftist in the White House, one can imagine the judges who will be appointed to lifetime sinecures on the Supreme Court and the various courts of appeal. You think Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter are bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

I have liberal friends -- mea culpa! -- who are euphoric because they’re convinced that, thanks to Obama, the world will now love America. For all my badgering, they refuse to cough up the names of those countries that were ready to divorce us, but are now eager to rush off on a second honeymoon. I do find it fascinating, though, that while we’ve now elected a Socialist, many of the European nations, having learned their lessons the hard way, have begun electing conservative leaders.

How long, I wonder, will it be before the Democrats turn Charles Schumer’s wet dream, otherwise known as the Fairness Doctrine, into a 1st amendment-shredding reality? And how long until Obama carries through on his promise to fund the U.N.’s campaign to end global poverty to the tune of a trillion dollars?

For the longest time, I had heard that in America anyone could grow up to be president. Now, when I consider Obama’s background, his friends and associates, and his views about wealth distribution, I can see they weren’t kidding. They meant absolutely anyone.

Years ago, I suggested that any man or woman who was convinced he or she should be president was clearly insane. For that reason, and because I was already fed up with all the lawyers being elected, my solution was to draw a name out of a hat. I was convinced there was a better chance of winding up with a sane, decent, honest guy in office if it turned out to be my next door neighbor or the lady who lives around the corner from you. Clearly, voting is one area where practice doesn’t make perfect. Holding elective office is another.

At this point, if I can’t have my lottery, I’d settle for two things. One, I’d limit voting to those people who pay income or property taxes. It’s just absurd that millions of Americans who have never held down a job or served in the military and are still receiving an allowance from their folks can cancel out the votes of their parents. Two, I’d make term limits mandatory for every elected office in America, and I’m talking about single terms. No more lifetime careers in politics. If you want to get rich, back off from the public trough and get an honest job.

Frankly, I don’t know if we could actually get by without politicians, but wouldn’t it be fun to try?